After the death of Olivia Barstow in a bicycle accident, her former classmate, Marta Boyle, feels drawn to her "ocean." She spends a summer with her grandmother on the Atlantic Coast and feels that she would like to be a writer.
On a summer visit to her grandmother's cottage by the ocean, twelve-year-old Martha gains perspective on the death of a classmate, her relationship with her grandmother, her feelings for an older boy, and her plan to be a writer.
